When the story broke it caused more excitement than the time when everyone was asking, "who shot Roger Rabbit?" Suddenly every banker from Frankfurt to Hong Kong wanted to know, "who at Dresdner Bank shot Simon Robertson?"

The odds are against women scaling the heights in finance. Glass ceilings still exist and tradition favours men when it comes to senior promotions. Despite this a small group of very talented and determined women have triumphed. Euromoney has identified 10 outstanding women and another 40 of notable achievement.

You're a first-time emerging market issuer in the bond market. Banks are desperate to win the mandate for your deal. But you want to make sure it flies. Do you, as Croatia did, put together two lead-managers? Or six leads, as in the forthcoming yankee for the Philippine central bank? No; if you're wise, you do the conventional thing and stick to one bank that you have a long-standing relationship with. Steven Irvine explains why.

Over the past three months Euromoney editor Garry Evans interviewed Ospel for a total of five hours, twice in Ospel's office in Basel and once last month, the day after the bank announced its 1996 results, by video link-up between London and Basel. The full 15,000-word text follows.